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Wheatgrass heals ailing skin graft
Last month brought quite a healing challenge. A 50 year old businessman was savaged by a dog requiring a split skin graft to his leg. After 6 weeks' standard medical treatment, the graft only "took" over part of the wound, leaving quite a large uncovered area. Frequent dressing changes and medical interventions were both time-consuming and expensive.
Two days after applying my wheatgrass extract and a non-adhesive dressing, there was a striking improvement in the wound surface. (View here) Because wheatgrass prevents dressings sticking to wounds and infection is rarely a problem, it was a simple matter for the patient to manage his own wound. There was no need to review him other than to take photographs and ensure the wound was healing well. It healed completely in less than three weeks.
The cost savings in nursing and medical care for this patient were significant. Had he been treated with the extract from the beginning they would have been even greater as I am certain the wound would have healed much quicker. Consider for a moment the economical benefits if all hospital wound-healing procedures were assisted in this way, not just for skin grafts, but for surgical wounds, open traumatic wounds, and to burns. They would be immense.
How does wheatgrass work? Classic teaching is to keep the wound surface clean and moist each time there is a dressing change. Reportedly cells grow more quickly and there is less adherence of the dressing to the wound surface. In fact, even with a moist surface, because the surface often dries out and because it is cleaned with physical agents such as skin wipes and irrigants, some surface damage usually occurs and slows the healing process.
Wheatgrass has the opposite effect. It very quickly seals the wound surface (within 24-36 hours) with a thin layer of new skin cells (re-epithelialisation). This enables the wound to heal from underneath the wound surface so that dressings don't stick to the wound, leaving natural healing to proceed unimpeded. In addition, growth factors contained in the wound fluid (exudate) are somehow stimulated by wheatgrass to expedite the healing process.
Dr. Chris Reynolds. M.B.,B.S.
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